Trump’s effort to make 2018 a referendum on immigration mostly didn’t work.
- Trump demonized immigrants and Democrats in an effort to mobilize his voters, peel off independents and depress Democratic turnout. If it had worked, Republicans would have swept most of the Senate races in Trump states, held the House and limited damage in state and local races. Mostly, it didn’t work.
- Democrats won back the House of Representatives with their largest majority in forty years. Democrats are on track to flip between 35 and 40 House seats. Democrats won the popular vote in the House races by 9 million votes, a whopping 8% margin. Nate Silver of 538 conducted an analysis of the House popular vote, projected it onto the 2020 presidential map, and found it equates to 314 electoral votes for Democrats and 224 for the GOP.
- Democrats flipped at least seven governors’ mansions, and won three governorships in “blue wall” states that Trump won in 2016 (Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania).
- Democrats won back majorities in at least seven state legislative chambers; and Democrats flipped more than 330 state legislative seats.
- In the Senate, Democrats hung on in five Trump states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia Wisconsin, and Montana; flipped Nevada; have a shot at flipping Arizona and Florida, depending on final tallies; and lost in Indiana, North Dakota, and Missouri.
Read more here.
